Ken Done AM, painter, studied at East Sydney Technical College before becoming an advertising graphic designer. Having achieved great success in this field – he won a Cannes Gold Lion in 1967 – he gave it up to paint full-time in 1980, working from a 'cabin' below his home on Sydney Harbour. Soon, his stylised, colourful representations of Sydney's beaches, harbour, animals and flowers found their way onto placemats, t-shirts, swimwear, bedlinen, mugs and vases; in the 1990s, the walls, ceiling and some furniture in the Garden Restaurant at the Powerhouse Museum were covered with murals by the artist. His crucial role in promoting Sydney as a tourist destination, particularly in Japan, is now widely acknowledged. Until this self portrait was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, no major Australian art museum held an example of his work. His memoir Ken Done: A life coloured in was published in 2016 and his Ken Done: Paintings you probably haven't seen in 2017.
Gift of the artist 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
© Ken Done
A self portrait of the artist Ken Done created in 1992. Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas measures 102 centimetres high and 76 centimetres wide.
The frame is painted a matte black with a floral and leaf design loosely scratched into the surface. The inner border of the frame is a darkened gold.
The background and figure are a patchwork of clashing colours and patterns. The surface is heavily textured, with brush marks evident and some short hairs from the paint brush caught in the paint. Ken Done’s face fills the frame; the top of his head, edges of his ears and base of neck, reach the outer edges of the canvas.
A line of thick black paint arcs across the top of his head. His face is divided into shapes, with his forehead painted red with yellow dots on the left side and cobalt blue on the right side, with a stylised white outline of the Sydney Harbour Bridge floating on top. The rest of his face is painted in zones of pink, forest green and blues. A patch of black with yellow stripes features under the left eye. A simplified outline of the Sydney Opera House is painted in white, filled in with blue on the right cheek.
He has painted himself with three non-matching eyes; the left eye, pink and blue with a yellow pupil, the right eye, yellow with a black pupil and a central eye, blue with a yellow pupil outlined in yellow. He has merged a profile face with a full-face representation, reminiscent of a cubist style of painting. Thick yellow paint outlines the yellow eye, eyebrow and side profile of a nose and mouth with a flash of white teeth. This profile sits on top of the right side of the full-face view. The frontal representation is more dominant with the eyes rimmed in black, a black moustache and exaggerated red banana-shaped smile. His neck brings together strong brush strokes of purple, orange, red, black and blue.
The top half of the background is painted a cobalt blue with the word ‘me’ painted in yellow block letters in the top left corner. The lower section of the canvas is coloured orange on the left side of his neck and has sections of mottled tones of turquoise, burgundy and green and a patch of yellow with irregular red dots on the right.
The artist initials, ‘KD’ are roughly painted in red in the lower right-hand corner.
Audio description written by Alana Sivell and voiced by Molly Desmond.
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Iconic Australian artist Ken Done discusses his life and career as a painter.
Dr Sarah Engledow writes about the gift of two striking paintings by the Australian artist Ken Done AM.
